Progresión abierta de los contenidos que se trabajan en la habilidad de patinaje

The study of provincial public administrations in Argentina has received significantly less attention than that of the national administration.6 Yet, most studies on party patronage generally assume that provincial states are patronage ridden and that ruling parties appoint as much as they want, as determined by their electoral strategies and fiscal possibilities. A detailed observation of the actual practices suggests a more nuanced picture.

In first place it is important to note that, as seen in table 6.4, minor differences aside, parties reach quite evenly across Argentine provinces. Although slightly lower figures in the most developed provinces might indicate that socio-economic development somewhat hinders parties´ domination of state structures (a point I discuss below), the numbers exhibited in table 6.4 demonstrate more similarities than differences across provinces.

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Horacio Cao´s works constitute, to my knowledge, the main source for this subject. All these works are only published in Spanish.

Table 6.4: Scope of patronage in selected provinces

Ministries Legislature Schools Health Mean CBA 0.95 1 0 0.78 0.68 CHACO 1 1 0 0.79 0.7 SANTA FE 0.88 0.8 0 0.79 0.62 TUCUMÁN 1 1 0.22 0.78 0.75 MEAN 0.96 0.95 0.05 0.78 0.68

Based on author´s interviews

Parties reach quite evenly across provincial ministries, using their legal powers to appoint top, mid- and bottom level positions. Open examinations are indeed extremely exceptional. Interestingly, by April 2005 the main newspaper of Tucumán published a celebratory article praising the provincial government for having initiated three processes of open examinations in the previous two years, something the article underlined as unprecedented.7 According to professor of Public Administration Raúl Degrossi, open examinations “were suspended in Santa Fe in 1987 and since then have been called in very exceptional cases”.8 In Chaco, none of my interviewees could recall an open contest being held in the public administration for the last decade. And lastly, in the City of Buenos Aires examinations for ministerial jobs also occur very rarely, organized by specific functionaries who need to recruit qualified employees, but not as a consistent public policy. In sum, in none of these provinces is there a merit-based system of access to the public administration; decisions about appointments are in

7

“El Estado comienza a modernizarse, pero la gente aún no advierte cambios”, La Gaceta, April 30, 2005. My interviewees confirmed that the initiative did not go any further.

practice, in all four provinces and in spite of existing regulations, at the discretion of office-holders.

The mechanisms to incorporate personnel into the ministries, decentralized agencies, and also into public companies are by and large similar in the four cases and very much the same as the ones employed at the national level. Sub-national governments hire new employees by way of temporary jobs, scholarships and internships. From time to time, groups of those contratados are integrated into the permanent staffs due to ruling parties´ decisions or, many times, due to informal agreements between governments and trade unions. The first step in the incorporation of personnel is in almost all cases realized through fixed-terms contracts. Getting one of those precarious forms of employment requires, as most people put it, “knowing someone inside” or “having a contact”. This rule applies to jobs at any level of the four administrations, from the most qualified to the most simple; there must always be someone to “bring you in.” For those who look for a public job, “knowing someone” is the first and foremost requisite.

Importantly, parties are not the only patrons in the sphere of the provincial public administrations. In fact, variations in the scope of party patronage in ministerial departments across provinces result less from alternative merit-based systems than from the strength of trade unions as competitive patrons in the ministerial bureaucracies. Unions of state personnel in all provinces have – as they do at the national level - their share of patronage powers, which functions as the most important constraint to party patronage. In Santa Fe and CBA experts estimate that around one third of positions at ministries are, in reality, decided by trade unionists, which explains the relatively low figures observed for those provinces in the scope of patronage at the ministries (table 6.5).

Table 6.5: Actual scope of party patronage at provincial ministerial departments

Range Depth Quantity

Aggregate Measure CBA 1 1 0.87 0.95 Chaco 1 1 1 1 Santa Fe 1 1 0.66 0.88 Tucumán 1 1 1 1

Based on author´s interviews

Unions of state personnel are also important patronage players in the field of health. While parties appoint top health bureaucrats and hospital authorities, at the bottom level their patronage powers, while still important, are shared with the unions, which control a large proportion of those jobs, including stretcher-bearers, ambulance drivers, and nurses. In addition, while parties do reach top and bottom levels of the health systems, the incidence of party patronage at middle levels is much more limited. “Intra-medical politics”, medical associations or unions, or simply personal linkages, are more decisive than parties in the assignment of positions at the middle levels. Just as the judges and the “judicial family” dominate appointments and play the patronage games in the courts, medical associations and unions push for positions in the health system. For instance, the appointment of the head of paediatrics at a provincial public hospital is seldom decided on the basis of a public contest. Most likely, those involved in the decision will be the hospital director, the medical federation, or simply other professionals of the same institution.

It is worth mentioning at this point that there is no spoils system in any sector of any provincial administration. As said above, every new government replaces all top

level officials and their respective cabinets, but the “sweep” reaches until the level of general director. Permanent staffs – which numerically constitute the large majority of the administration - are legally protected and political authorities have by and large respected that limit. And as for the contratados at mid and bottom levels, replacements involve only a group of them and are more pronounced in some areas (typically welfare) than in others (for instance finance). In all cases those who were openly linked to a previous government will lose their jobs once the news authorities assume power, but those who work on administrative duties normally conserve their positions. As is the case at the national level, parties tend to create new jobs to undertake the more sensitive tasks but usually do not fire the existing employees, even when they have temporary contracts. As a former top bureaucrat of CBA said “…the private secretary will obviously be replaced but for most of the contratados it all depends on the functions they fulfil. The guy who knows what button must be pushed to make the machinery work will surely conserve his job.”9

Legislatures and schools deserve separate treatment. The former are the locus of party patronage, the institution where, by definition, activists are expected to be employed. In principle, every provincial legislator gets an amount of money to be distributed as she considers fit to employ personnel. In all provinces there is a basic amount which all legislators receive, to which legislators add different extras depending on the formal positions they hold (parliamentary caucus´ and committees´ chairmanships). Even when those rules remain the same across time, legislatures’ actual patronage powers largely depend on their political strength vis a vis the governor. When the executive power enjoys strong popular legitimacy and has a disciplined legislative majority, patronage powers of the legislature tend to be limited. By contrast, when the

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governor needs to negotiate political support with the legislators, patronage powers of the legislatures grow. That explains why the number of employees of the legislature of Tucumán grew “only” from 1,280 to 1,681 between 1999 and 2003, when Governor Miranda dominated a cohesive PJ parliamentary bloc, but skyrocketed to 4,031 in 2004 and grew to more than 7,000 by 2007), when Governor Alperovich had to negotiate the support of a hostile legislature, dominated by a different PJ faction. Likewise, patronage powers of the legislature of CBA have increased since 2000, when the executive power had to negotiate with a myriad of opponent parliamentary groups.10

Table 6.6: Size of the Legislatures of Selected Provinces – 2007

Legislators Employees 2007*

CBA 60 2,034

Chaco 32 994

Santa Fe 69

(50 deputies and 19 senators)

1,276

Tucumán 40** Between 7,500 and 12,00011

*Based on provincial budgets, published on the provinces official websites, except for Tucumán ** The constitutional reform of 2007 changed to 49 legislators

In 2007, a deputy in Santa Fe received an amount which made it possible for her to appoint between five and eight assistants and advisers; in Chaco the number ranged from six to 40; in CBA, it was not less than 12 but rarely more than 50. In contrast, in Tucumán the minimum per legislator was 80, while a member of the majority bloc

10

In telling contrast, for example, during the times of Carlos Juárez, the Peronist caudillo of Santiago del Estero whose rule has been characterized as sultanistic (Gervasoni, 2008) and authoritarian (Gibson, 2004) legislators had extremely limited powers to appoint, which never exceeded three advisers. Information based on several author´s interviews in the province of Santiago del Estero.

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There is no official data on the size of the legislature of Tucumán. The range emerges from the numbers acknowledged by the president of the legislature (See “Juri dejará cesantes a 5,000 empleados”,

could appoint between 200 and 300.12 It is thus not surprising that, as revealed in table 6.6, the size of the legislative branch of Tucumán by 2007 more than doubled that of the rest of the legislatures together.

In sum, appointments in the provincial legislatures follow a similar pattern to those in the National Congress. Yet, Santa Fe being a probable exception, provincial legislators employ more people (and have many more resources to distribute) than national deputies or senators.

Finally, education constitutes the only sector which is by and large free from party patronage. The sector has been referred to as “the last fortress”, meaning that when politicians manage to appoint teaching personnel it will signify that the whole public sector has been taken over by patronage (Rivas, 2004:154). Among our cases, the educational sectors of CBA, Chaco and Santa Fe are by and large free from party patronage. Actually, in the four studied provinces the Juntas de calificación function correctly and both appointments and promotions are decided on the basis of the qualifications and merits established by the regulations. Yet, in the case of Tucumán parties sometimes do manipulate legal proceedings to appoint in this sector. Rather than a systematic practice, what actually occurs is that merit rankings are sometimes modified to favour a particular candidate.13 But these have so far been isolated cases, especially in the rural areas of the province.

Parties´ limited reach in this sector is generally attributed to the long-standing strength and political autonomy of the teaching unions. These unions usually have a dominant presence in the composition of the Juntas (which in most cases are elected by

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The variation across legislators largely results from their political status and, to use Sartori´s terms (1976), their blackmail/coalitional powers. All these numbers were referred by people with direct knowledge of the different legislatures, including legislators and advisers of the four provinces, and have a logical correlation with the size of the legislatures.

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For example, that “Someone who is fourth in the list of the Junta may jump a few positions if she has the right connections in the ministry.” Author’s Interview with Teresa Ramallo, leader of the private teachers´ union, SADOP, July 11, 2007

the vote of the teachers, with minor participation of the province executive power) and therefore control the process of appointments and promotions. To a large extent, the legitimacy of the unions is founded on the good management of the Juntas de Calificación. In that sense, it is arguable that a strong constituency for universalism (Shefter, 1977) exists in this sector, both among teachers and unions as in the community at large, which repudiates parties’ intervention in the selection of teachers.14 It is equally important to note that most teachers used to be national employees until the Federal Education Bill, in 1993, transferred the education systems to the provinces. The autonomy of the sector predates its inclusion into the provincial bureaucracies.

To conclude, it must be pointed out that even when parties dominate provincial state bureaucracies and appoint in almost all sectors and levels, less than half of the jobs created at the provincial level are effectively appointed by politicians. The educational sector alone, into which parties do not reach, contributes around half of the total provincial employees in each province. In addition, parties do not appoint employees in the judiciary. While they have aggressive policies to nominate judges that circumvent legal constraints, parties do not reach into the judicial bureaucracies. Likewise, as already noted, they have little influence on middle levels of professional personnel in the health sector. Actually, the frequent protests and strikes of provincial public employees, typically teachers and personnel from the health sector, suggest that using the number of provincial jobs as proxies for patronage do not capture the real picture.

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Actually, all those linked in some way or another to the education system – what they call simply the system - repel the presence of partisan appointments in any area of the sector. The administrative personnel of ministries of education are usually also recruited from “the system”, and in most cases so are the political authorities. It is increasingly rare to find ministers of education without a background related to the educational system, which seems to be a necessary condition to keep good ties with the different actors that compound it.

6.4 Conclusion

To summarize, four main findings emerge from the research on the scope of party patronage in the provinces. First, the ruling party does not seem to have any effect on the scope of party patronage, while the level of socio-economic development seems to have a very minor impact. In Santa Fe, after 24 years of Peronist rule, the scope of patronage is clearly not larger than in City of Buenos Aires, where the PJ has never controlled the government. Likewise, the UCR government in Chaco has not made less use of patronage than the PJ provincial governments have. As for the socio-economic variable, we can observe that the two provinces with the lower levels of development are those in which parties reach more. To some extent that is due to other factors such as the presence of strong “union patronage” in CBA and Santa Fe, but it also seems plausible that the low socio-economic conditions of a province provide incentives to make use of jobs to develop clientelistic linkages. However, as far as my survey on the scope of patronage is concerned, those differences are not significant. Parties might use state jobs differently in different settings (I discuss this point in the next chapter) but they reach into state structures to similar degrees regardless of the level of modernization or development of the province.

Second, parties´ reach does not evenly extend to all provincial public sectors. Ministries and legislatures constitute the loci of party patronage in the provinces. Legislatures are the institutions in which most activists are appointed. Among the ministerial departments, even though political appointments reach them all at all levels, some areas are more prone to patronage than others. In that regard, ministries of social development (or social assistance) are pointed out by interviewees as patronage-ridden institutions, whereas financial departments tend to develop a higher degree of stability